Impossible
by Elizabeth Manchester
Summary: He'd said never say never ever as a warning. Now he took it as nothing's impossible. Crossing the Void isn't impossible... but then why does the TARDIS keep taking him to strange places? Why Martha? Why all these dreams? What does the face of Bo mean?
1. Disclaimer

Right, this is my disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, nor will I ever own Doctor Who – IT'S NOT MINE!! (sobs) - I do however own my own mini-Sonic Screwdriver and a Dalek mug (grins)

This is my own version of a post-Doomsday fixer-upper. I just had to write it after watching their goodbye, I was crying in my mug of tea. Anyway, the plot line was written and so were a few of the chapters before Smith and Jones aired – I did try to get this posted beforehand but what with one thing or another I didn't. Anyway it's here now.

Anyway, big thank you to my friend Heather who ever so kindly read through my fic and pointed out any mistakes – there's a TARDIS Easter Egg heading your way hun!

I accept all reviews and constructive criticism, even insulting flames, as long as they have a point to them. If you are reviewing simply to insult, don't even bother clicking the review button.

Enjoy!!


	2. Prologue 1

**Impossible **

This is set right after Doomsday so contains spoilers for that episode.

"Speech." _Thinking. _**Telepathic communication.**

**Prologue 1**

Pete and Mickey stood by the old jeep, watching two of the women in their lives cling to each other in misery. Both of their hearts were aching for Rose.

"We can't stay here much longer, Pete," the younger man muttered under his breath. "It's taken us just over a month to get here. They were suspicious from the beginning but now they're really going to be following us. I'm surprised they haven't sent an armed detail."

The balding man sighed. "I know. The longer we stay, the closer they get to sending out the Hounds of Actaeon," he rocked back on his heels, staring at the overcast sky. "Jake radioed in again this morning. They're picking up hints or a fairly major plan. It's going to happen soon. We should definitely be back before it gets underway."

"Why should we?" Mickey snapped angrily, kicking the sand. "This major plan is probably going to be against us, why should we go back there and just 'and ourselves in?"

"I don't like this any more than you do Mick," hardly anyone in this universe called Mickey Smith by his full name, just Jackie and Rose. "But our chances are better if we know what they're planning and going back is the best way to do that. It may also help convince Hunter we're on his side," he ignored the snort of disbelief from Mickey. "Besides, it was our choice to bring Rose here."

"We thought he'd be here though! We thought he'd be able to get us away from here! Or at least to get Rose away from here."

Pete was suddenly as angry as the younger black man by his side. "Do you think I don't realise just how much our situation has worsened? I never thought Rose would pose so much of a threat here… but the signs were clear to see, I just couldn't spot them."

Mickey placed a comforting hand on his mentor's shoulder. When they'd first crossed the Void, Pete had taken Mickey under his wing. What had at first been a grudging respect had become a good friendship and the two were now as close as father and son. It was one of the many reasons why Mickey knew there would be no future between Rose and himself. "We all missed them. We thought it was respect, not interest. How many times are you likely to get such an encyclopaedia of alien knowledge visit?"

The eldest Tyler looked round suddenly. "We've stayed here too long already. We've got to move."

"Shouldn't we wait a bit longer?" Mickey demanded.

Pete wasn't listening to him and was already striding towards his wife and daughter. "She can cry in the car Mick, we've got to leave!"

Jackie was soothing her daughter with comforting words and cast a scared look at the two men when they arrived. It clearly said 'What are we going to do now?'

Rose tried to calm herself down when she saw them approach. "I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I didn't tell him… I just… I just couldn't tell him!"

Mickey bit back an angry comment. He wasn't angry at Rose, he was just angry at their situation. "Rose, you know we're on our own now. We can't keep running either. We're going to have to go back."

"It's worse that you think Mickey…" she trailed off into a series of hiccupping sobs, wiping her face and taking several deep breath to calm herself. "I didn't tell you the whole truth when I told you about my dreams."

She only heard the wind in reply and saw her family staring at her in shock. "So, it's worse than we ever thought possible?" Pete wondered.

Rose nodded mutely. "I was so sure he'd be here," she whispered. "No. No, I was more than sure, I knew he was gonna come here… but why wasn't he?"

Jackie held onto her daughter more tightly, trying to comfort her. "Rose," Mickey looked her directly in the eyes. "We're following your lead here; you've dealt with this before. Is there any way we can get out of this without the Doctor?"

"No," her reply was barely above a whisper. "I really thought I'd seen the last of this, back in the other universe. I didn't think it would follow me to this universe… but I guess I should have know," her sadness became self-mockery. "I should have known. Things are never that simple."

"Rose? Sweetheart, what else do we need to know?" Jackie begged, worried for the lives of both her children.

"I'm sorry. I should have told you the truth from the start," Rose shivered slightly in the cold and wrapped her jacket around her. She needed to tell them.

As Rose began telling her family the truth, she could only hope that she had been right in her instincts about the Doctor. She _knew_ he was going to find a way back to her. She just hoped he made it in time.

Unknown to the young blonde, far away another woman was watching over her. She had been guiding Rose's footsteps for quite some time now and she wasn't going to see current circumstances interfere with her plans.

The unknown being knew she was being rather hypocritical; before she had always been an advocate of non-interference, leaving things and people to their own devices regardless of consequences, but then Rose had become a part of her life.

From the very first moment she had met Rose she had known there was something different about the young blonde. Many other people had been in Rose's position before but none had so intrigued her as this young human girl did. She'd found herself drawn to the girl, helping her where she could. She knew she shouldn't have but she couldn't help herself.

Then Rose had opened the heart of the TARDIS and she'd realised just why the blonde was so special. Rose bonded with the TARDIS but it was _her_ power that Rose used. She opened herself to Rose and bonded with her, creating in the human the Bad Wolf.

She hadn't anticipated that the Doctor would interfere then but unbeknownst to the meddling Time Lord he did not remove the power of the Bad Wolf. Such power, once bestowed, could never be removed. Rose Tyler would be Bad Wolf for the rest of her life, but thanks to the Doctor's interference that power was trapped. If he did not undo it, Rose would die a human death without fully realising her power.

The watching woman would not allow that. Rose was her child, she would look out for her. Rose would know the truth of who she was.

Turning away from her crying child, she turned her mind to the task at hand, reaching out through time and space. Bad Wolf reached back. Together, they wrote her future into the universe, entwining it with another's fate. They scattered clues through time and space and spoke in the depths of minds all with a single purpose; Rose would know the truth.

AN: right, what do you think? See that little box at the bottom of the page that says 'go'? Click it and see what happens .


	3. Prologue 2

**Impossible**

This is set after "The Runaway Bride" but before the new series – a missing scene. There are slight spoilers for the Special but none for the new series. There are heavy spoilers for the beach scene on Doomsday though. You have been warned.

"Speech." _Thinking. _**Telepathic communication.**

**Prologue 2**

He shut the doors to the TARDIS with the biggest feeling of relief he'd ever felt and all but ran to the main console, hurriedly setting the co-ordinates that would get them into the time vortex. Hopefully they could just drift there for a while as he tried to get a grip on everything that had happened to him in the past few days.

The Doctor slumped down into his chair with relief. When Donna had suddenly appeared on the TARDIS and started screeching at him he didn't think he'd have a moments peace. What an annoying woman! Never in all his 900 years had he ever encountered such an annoying being. Never! She'd even slapped him. Twice! Mind you, at least it wasn't as bad as the one that Jackie had…

He ran a tired hand over his face. _Oh Rose. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._ Memories came flooding back to him and he wasn't surprised to find fresh tears already coursing down his cheeks.

He'd done most of his grieving before he'd had the idea to contact her – and by that he meant screaming in a rage, throwing, kicking and smashing things, shouting at the top of his lungs before eventually sinking into an hysterical mess. He'd been sat in a moment of quiet depression when the idea came to mine that he couldn't _physically_ move between the universes, but there was nothing stopping a message getting through to her.

He'd immediately started on calculations for power requirements, found a suitable supernova and camped in orbit for three months while he called out to her. He'd timed it perfectly. As the power of the supernova increased over those months he could talk to her more and more in her dreams until, just as the final crack in the breach was sealing, he had enough power to project his image to her. His timing had been perfect but he'd been an idiot, wasting those precious few minutes on that Norwegian beach. All those months calling to her in her dreams and for what?

He'd been ready to say those words, to say them to _her_, but he wasted his chance. He'd blew the only opportunity he would ever have to tell her 'I love you' – those three words, three simple words that meant so much, and he hadn't been able to say them. He hated himself for babbling on when he knew he didn't have much time to say just how much he loved her.

He loved Rose Tyler. Completely, unabashedly, unashamedly loved her with his entire being… and yet he'd hesitated. He had been too scared to say those words to someone for the first time in his long existence. He'd fought not to love her, but he'd just fallen all the more. Regeneration hadn't changed that either, he's just fallen harder. Yet the second, the very instant he resolved to say those words to her he ran out of time.

The Doctor snorted, swiping furiously at the tears that would not stop flowing. The irony of the situation was torture: a Time Lord beaten by the very thing he claimed mastery over. He could cry at the irony of his situation if he weren't already crying tears of anger, hatred and loss.

The Doctor, last of the Time Lords, the Oncoming Storm, the stuff monsters had nightmares about, was an empty and broken man. He was dead on the inside and all because he hadn't been able to tell her.

_I love you_.

He'd lost people before, either to death or by choice, but this… this was different. Rose was fine. She was alive, she was with her family and she would be able to live a normal life… yet he'd lost her forever, a universe separating the two of them. He'd never be able to see her again, the last crack having been sealed, but he'd lived with that before. He'd mourned the loss of other companions before, knowing he wouldn't see them again unless he ended up crossing his own timeline (it could and probably would happen again knowing him), and he'd learned to live with it.

So why couldn't he this time? Rose was safe with her family, so why was he mourning her like she was dead?

He scoffed. Who was he tying to kid? He wasn't mourning for her but rather the fact that he'd never told her just how much he loved her, even though he'd had plenty of opportunities. His mind drifted back to their brief conversation on that Norwegian beach. His hearts had nearly stopped when she'd mentioned the baby. He hadn't known whether to be disappointed or relieved when she told him she wasn't pregnant. They hadn't been lovers long, only since their return from Krop-tor, but she could have fallen pregnant. Then again, though possible, Gallifreyan-human pregnancies were extremely rare, conception was extremely difficult, so it wasn't very likely she was carrying his child.

It was probably for the best, he thought morosely. He didn't know if he would have been able to cope if the woman he loved and his unborn child were stranded in another universe. He wouldn't have wanted to cope if that was the case.

Slowly, he brought his hands up to cover his face, wiping away the last of his tears. He would bear the guilt, loneliness, sorrow and self-hatred until his end, why wallow in it? They were going to be his companions for the rest of his life so he'd have plenty of time to get to know them intimately.

He stood up and the TARDIS reached out for him comfortingly. Walking out of the console room he gently caressed the wall, reassuring his ship that he would be ok. Happy? Not a chance. But ok he could do. Trusting his ship to take care of herself for now, he set off through the empty corridors for his room, avoiding the corridors that would lead him to Rose's old room and the room they'd both moved into when they'd become lovers. His room was hidden away within the secret depths of the TARDIS, allowing him the solitude that he sometimes craved even though finding it confused even him at times (not that he'd admit to that). There was one definite way to find it though, and that was to take a short cut through the library. There was a door in the section that housed all his original (now unique) Gallifreyan texts and his room was directly opposite that study door.

His ship seemed to realise what he was doing and already had the door to the library open for him – either that or Rose forgot to shut it behind her again. Left, right, second left, past the statue he'd 'borrowed' from ancient Egypt, third right and there was the Gallifreyan section.

Green stone floors, the finest Gallifrey had to offer, antique bookcases, his favourite chair that he had 'borrowed' from his father's study before leaving. This was, in his opinion, the most beautiful part of his ship. He wasn't there to admire the interior design, he reminded himself, and strode over the green stone tiles to the door.

He stopped when he heard a thud from behind him and turned to find a book on the floor, having apparently fallen from a low shelf where it had been wedged tightly between several other books. One eyebrow raised, he picked it up and put it back on the shelf, ignoring the title completely. He turned to leave again when the same thud stopped him.

"Alright!" he sighed. "I can take a hint."

He turned around and picked the book up that the TARDIS had been 'suggesting' he read. A manic grin suddenly crossed the Doctor's face and he sat down eagerly in his chair, opening the book and diving into it. He'd have to thank his ship later, if he could remember, for her brilliant choice of reading material. With this book, the impossible wasn't so impossible any more.

_The theory of multiple universes and traversing the Void._

Thank Rassilon for, well, Rassilon. He'd written the book after all. This book was his ticket back to Rose and he wasn't going to waste a second. Not again. He'd find a way back to Rose, no matter how long it took him. He had eternity to spare after all.

Love it? Hate it? Think it's the wrost piece of crap you've ever read? Leave a review and let me know.


	4. Smith and Jones

**Impossible**

AN: This was written before Smith and Jones aired so the first chapter can be considered AU to some extent. I did keep my own version of how the Doctor met Martha mainly because it's such a Doctor-ish thing to have happened (grins) I'm hoping the rest of this fic will seem in character with Martha though now that I've had a chance to see how she is. Wasn't it a great episode though? Naturally, I'm gutted Rose is gone – hence this fic lol – but Martha's a pretty good companion. I can't wait to see how she handles herself in next Saturday's episode.

"Speech." _Thinking. _**Telepathic communication.**

**Chapter 1 – Smith and Jones**

He stared at the numbers hurriedly scrawling across the screen. "Come on!" he urged them, his attention never wavering. "Hurry it up!"

Patience had never been one of the Doctor's strong suits, especially not in this incarnation, and he resisted the urge to kick the TARDIS console. _Hurting her won't get you anywhere!_ He reminded himself pointedly, wrenching his attention back to his equations and watching as the scenario unfolded in front of him. **It just has to work this time.**

This was his eighth plan to get through to Rose's new universe and he was desperate for this one to work. His first plan was a complete failure and would have destroyed both universes the second he started. His second through fifth plans would have required him to blow up an entire galaxy to get the power he needed. As much as he needed Rose, he just couldn't commit mass-murder like that to get to her… although as the seconds ticked away in front of this simulation, plans two through five were beginning to look more and more appealing. His sixth plan would have killed Rose – a very bad plan indeed – while his seventh plan would have destroyed the TARDIS and him along with it – also a very bad plan. Now he was betting on lucky number eight, a plan which tied together the most brilliant parts of his other plans, and hopefully none of their weaknesses.

"Adjust the shielding like that," he murmured to himself as he made the necessary changed to the scenario. "Increase the power like so… and…"

His grin faded into a look of utter shock and disbelief as the simulation stopped and died right before his eyes. He'd just destroyed two universes.

"No! No, no, no, no, NO!" he roared and hit the main console with his left hand, ignoring the sudden shooting pain it caused him. "How the hell did that happen!" he raged. "I spent a year – a whole year – perfecting those equations! It should have worked!"

This time he did kick his ship and was rewarded with a mild electrical shock. He jumped back automatically, clutching his hand as he glared at his ship.

"I don't expect you to understand!" he snapped.

She beeped at him indignantly.

"How could you?" the Doctor demanded. "She wasn't _your_ lover! She wasn't everything to _you_!" he slumped down in his chair and buried his face in his hands. "I've failed her again."

The TARDIS could feel his sorrow and pain and immediately regretted electrocuting him – even if it was only a little one and he had deserved it at the time. She reached out to him and for a moment he let her comfort him before wrenching himself away.

"How can you not be trying to help her?" he snapped, his anger rising again. "You're the TARDIS! You're probably smarter than ten – twenty – of me put together! Why don't you do something to help for a change?"

She jerked suddenly, mid-flight, and sent him flying to the grille floor of the main console room head first.

The Doctor sat up slowly, holding his head and groaning. He could now add concussion to his list of injuries, her realised. The Time Rotor slowly began to swim into focus before his eyes as the stars that had just been dancing there began to subside. "You might not be helping me," he grumbled. "But you've just given me an idea."

The Time Lord leapt to his feet and began racing around the console, flicking switches and pulling levers left, right and centre.

As the Time Rotor engaged she panicked. She couldn't let him do this! Hurriedly she began changing their course but he was already two moves ahead of her.

"I can see her again!" he cried happily. "Back before she ever met me! Before all this ever happened! I'll be able to see her, to talk to her again!"

Had she a voice she would have been screaming at him, begging him not to do this. He couldn't risk it. It was far to dangerous for him to cross his own timeline like that and any interactions he had with Rose could significantly alter their history. As it was, all she could do was to try and change the time they arrived at their destination.

He locked the controls and glared at the time rotor of his ship, the focal point of the console, as if daring her to try and stop him. "I can see her again… I can hear her voice."

The TARDIS ached with the Doctor, feeling his pain as her own. She too missed the presence of the blonde companion who had wormed her way into both of their affections so quickly, but she could see the danger that the Doctor was throwing them into by crossing his own timeline. She couldn't let him do that.

As they began to leave the vortex and materialise at the Powell Estate she used every ounce of her power to alter their landing.

"What are you doing?" he cried as he was thrown away from the console, hitting his seat. Nearby a console panel burst into flames before the automated extinguishers took care of it. He decided it would be better for him to remain on the floor until the old girl had stabilised a bit and sparks stopped flying everywhere.

As she began the final stage of materialisation, he pulled himself to his feet and stared at the console. It was offline. Cursing under his breath he looked around for his sonic screwdriver, it having fallen from his grasp in the rough landing, when he caught sight of something decidedly wrong.

The TARDIS had materialised around a woman, a student by the looks of her, and she was stood by the main console staring at him in a mixture of shock and horror. She had a half-open backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder, books almost spilling out, and a hot drink in her right hand that was in danger of being spilled all over his TARDIS by how violently she was trembling.

_Damn! What has she done now!_ The Doctor wondered, casting a suspicious look at the TARDIS. _Well, best make a good impression_, he thought morosely and smiled at the woman.

Her lower lip trembled and for a second he thought she was going to burst into tears – he hoped not, he could never handle hysterical women – but she just gibbered incoherently and crumpled to the floor in a dead faint, her tea going everywhere and sending up a haze of smoke as it short-circuited everything it came into contact with. That was just what he needed right now.

"Bollocks!"

An hours work on the TARDIS saw the damage from the tea repaired and the circuitry once more… well, he could really say 'as good as new' seeing as how he'd never seen the circuitry in his TARDIS new. She'd had a previous Time Lord or Lady (or two or three for that matter) before he'd come along. Still the circuitry was repaired to the best of his ability.

That just left the problem of the student.

He could always wipe her memory of the TARDIS materialising about her, leave here outside on the pavement so that she'd think she just had a fainting spell and he could go back to see Rose, leaving the student none-the-wiser that she'd almost been abducted by an alien.

He could feel the reproach from the TARDIS roll off her in waves.

He'd never do something like that. It just wasn't him. He might hate staying for the clean-up and the questions after pulling something off, but he would stay if it was absolutely necessary for him to do so. A necessity that the TARDIS assured him applied to this situation.

So he was stuck with a student who'd fainted on sight of him. Perfect.

He'd taken her through to his medical wing not long after she'd fainted so that she could come to in more comfortable surroundings. As an added bonus he also had plenty of sedatives there if she became hysterical again when she saw him.

Repairs complete and with the TARDIS promising to electrocute him if he didn't take care of this situation he headed to the medical wing, book in hand, ready to answer the questions that he knew would inevitably come up. He wouldn't have a chance to read his book though as she was already coming to when he arrived.

She sat up groggily, placing a hand to her pounding head. She must have hit her head when she fell. That thought caused her to remember why she'd collapsed in the first place and her eyes shot open. She bit her lip to keep from crying out when she saw him open the door and walk into the… where the hell was she anyway?

He seemed surprised to see she was awake. "Oh, hello there."

"Who are you?" she demanded warily, watching as he sat in a nearby chair and placed a book on a table. "And while we're talking where the hell am I, how did I get here and what the hell did I just see happen?"

He smirked. "I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor who? And what type of doctor are you? Medical? Scientific?"

"Just the Doctor and I'm not really a doctor of anything, more like a doctor of everything,"

She ignored the strange remark. "The Doctor?"

"That's me. Now, you know who I am but I still don't know who you are and that's a bit rude don't you think? You fainting in my home without even telling me your name. I know I'm one to talk given that I turned out pretty rude this time round, not ginger either, but at least I've never gone and fainted in someone's home without introducing myself."

"Martha Jones," she said cautiously, wondering just who she was dealing with. He certainly had a gob on him. "I'm a med student at… hang on? Your home? Since when do homes suddenly appear out of thin air?"

The Doctor's smirk faded slightly. This was the part he hated and coincidentally the part where she was most likely to turn into a hysterical wreck. "That brings us swiftly onto your other questions. Where are you? You are in the medical wing of my TARDIS – that's Time And Relative Dimension In Space. How did you get here? If by that you mean how you got to the medical wing, I brought you here. I couldn't have you lying all over the floor of my console room. But if you mean how did you get into my TARDIS well… truth be told that's actually my fault. Dodgy landing. Y'see, the TARDIS is a spaceship and also a time ship which dematerialises in one location and re-materialises in another and I accidentally materialised on top of you, causing you to appear inside my TARDIS," he grinned sheepishly. "Sorry about that by the way."

Only the fact that she had seen his ship materialise around her stopped her from calling him insane and in need of psychiatric evaluation. She was still tempted to deny it though. "I feel like you're telling me the plot of some cheesy sci-fi show," Martha muttered. "Next you'll be telling me you're an alien from Mars."

"Don't be stupid, Martians are much uglier," he scoffed.

"You're trying to say you're an alien?"

"A Time Lord, to be precise."

That was a little too much for the already shocked and mildly concussed woman to take and she fell back to her bed in a dead faint. The Doctor sighed and picked up his book. It was going to be one of _those_ days.

Forty-eight hours later he was sat with Martha in the medical wing again. Both of them had fresh mugs of tea and were sipping them patiently while one of his machines finished healing the burns on the med student's leg.

They'd hurried back from the Globe theatre after everything had been taken care of but the fire had caught them unawares. He had a superficial burn to his hand that had been easily taken care of, but the burns on Martha's leg needed a little more care. Once her pain meds had taken effect she'd been fine and had started bothering him to no end with questions about his medical wing. He had to admit, after so much time alone, it was rather refreshing to have some company again and to have yet another human pestering him with questions… but he still wanted to be alone so he could find a way to get Rose back.

Martha wouldn't be here for much longer anyway. He'd heal her leg, help her sort out the compensation slip the Judoon had given her, maybe show her a peaceful planet to make up for the wrecked trip to Shakespearian England and then drop her back off in the alley to meet up with her family again. Maybe he'd even point her in Sarah Jane's direction. She seemed to have a level head about alien matters.

"Do you do this all the time?" she asked him suddenly, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Run in at the last minute, get hurt but somehow manage to save the day?"

He grinned. "Yep!"

"Every day, fighting aliens, making deals, keeping universal peace?"

The Doctor had to laugh at that. "The universe is anything but peaceful, Martha, and most of the time I just stumble into trouble. I told you before I wasn't going looking for trouble in the hospital I just got caught up in it. When that happens I help sort things out and then leave for somewhere else."

"Or some_when_ else?" she smirked. "You can really go anywhere in space or time in this thing, can't you?"

"The universe is infinite," he nodded, knowing she was leading up to something.

"So you could watch the pyramids being built, or see the wonders of ancient Greece, and then the next minute you could be hundreds of thousands of years into the future on the other side of the universe?" he nodded again. She grinned. "Got a spare room on this ship then? Looks like you need another doctor on this ship to look after you," she joked.

"No."

The denial was automatic. He thought having another companion would help him try and get over Rose, which was why he had been so nice to Donna even after she'd slapped him. _Twice!_ But since leaving the bride behind and working on his calculations, he'd decided that he was better off alone for now.

The TARDIS immediately disapproved of his decision and he knew why. Rose had said several times that she hated the thought of him being alone and, during a quiet moment that Christmas with the Tyler's, Jackie had taken him to one side and told him just what Rose had said and done before returning to him on the Game Station. She didn't want him to be alone, even if she wasn't the one there with him. She'd said as much in Canary Wharf… only now he didn't even have her. Besides, there would be no way he could take Martha: her cousin had been at Canary Wharf and even though she'd been killed by the Cybermen he'd been the one to stop Adeola. He couldn't have Martha as a companion even if he wanted another one.

But he didn't want just any person as his companion. He wanted Rose.

The TARDIS gave him another mental nudge. **Ok, ok. I get it. You want me to agree!** He snapped back.

The Doctor realised then that Martha had been talking while he'd been having his mental conversation with the TARDIS. She was trying to convince him to take her with him too. _What is it with these two women?_ He groused.

"… you did say you get into a lot of trouble. I'm only two months off being a fully qualified Doctor, so I'd be prefect to help you if you get into any more dangerous situations. It's not like I'd be missing anything either. This is a time machine after all. You could take me with you now and bring me back without even missing a minute…"

"Martha!" he interrupted. "I get it, you'd be a good time travelling companion, but why do you want to go if you're so close to becoming a doctor?"

"I know aliens really do exist, I mean I'm sat next to one now… but that just means that we're going to keep meeting more and more aliens and I'd like to be ready for that. I want to know more about them. What are their physiologies like? Do they all look human, like you do? Can they catch human diseases? Can we catch their diseases?"

The Time Lord couldn't help but chuckle. "Ok."

She beamed. "You mean I can come with you?" she smirked suddenly. "Gonna be a bit crowded with just two of us in here don't you think?"

"Not a chance. The TARDIS is potentially infinitely large, you could loose yourself for years in here – in fact someone did once, gave me a hell of a fright when he popped up again. Anyway, for obvious reasons, the medical wing is close to the console room, but there are plenty of rooms you can choose from… there are some that are off limits but those doors won't open for you so I'll say no more about it," he stood up suddenly. "Right, drink your tea and when that's finished with your leg meet me in the console room – don't worry, you'll be able to find your way – and we can go to your house so you can get a few things."

With that said, the Doctor walked out with a flourish, a small niggling feeling at the back of his mind telling him that he was almost certainly going to regret this.

A bar of chocolate for each reviewer!!


	5. Huon? How?

**Impossible**

This chapter is completely different from the one I had originally planned out, but as soon as I saw the preview after Blink and Doctor Who Confidential I was hit by an idea that just would not leave and this is the result. I can't wait for this Saturday – Jack's back!!! Yay! Oh, also, my apologies for how long this chapter took to get out. Limited internet access.

stardog252 – thanks for the review, glad you think its getting good – I'm sorry to say that updates might not be all that frequent as my computer access is extremely limited. I'm posting as often as I can though.

gaiafreedom21 – lol, glad you like this, I'm having comp problems of my own so I can sympathise, hope you like this chap as much.

Moreta Lynx – I don't know the original series as well as I'd like but I'm pretty sure that that line is only the product of my imagination, lol, it does sound like something the Doctor would say.

Speech is in normal font, thoughts are in _italics_ and telepathic communication is in **bold**.

**Chapter**** 2 – Huon? How?**

Martha barged into the Tardis ahead of the Doctor, dripping mud all over the grille floor.

"It really wasn't that bad!" he protested, in a similar state to his companion. He shut the door firmly and draped his sodden coat over the railings.

"Not that bad? We had to crawl through mud for half a sodding hour to get past that mob!" she shrieked, wiping her face. "I still can't understand why you had to overthrow a government just to escape."

"The Hunan government would have been overthrown today anyway… I just helped a little," he smirked, pulling some clods of soil out of his hair. "_Vive la revolution!_"

The medical student glared at him. "You deliberately landed us in a warzone?"

The Time Lord backed down quickly. He'd seen Jackie Tyler on the warpath like this too many times and knew it was all too likely he'd end up getting slapped. "Not deliberately. The timing system still isn't perfect. I still need a few replacement parts to fix that problem. I only realised when we were when I got thrown into gaol."

"For the first or second time?" she asked cockily, accepting his answer nonetheless.

He just grinned and walked around the console, taking them into the vortex so the three of them could rest. Warzones, battles and large angry mobs were starting to take their toll on the Tardis and she needed longer to recover from them.

"Are you always in this much trouble?" Martha asked from where she sat trying to undo the sodden messes that had been her shoelaces this morning.

"Usually." The Doctor smirked, his eyes not leaving the console monitors as he checked systems and connections.

"Let me guess: when you're not in _this_ much trouble, you're in worse?" she groused, giving up on her shoelaces and just pulling her trainers off.

"Exactly!" his grin widened. "You're starting to get the hang of this."

Inwardly she beamed at his praise but outwardly maintained her annoyed façade. Three days with little to no sleep while running – or rather crawling – for her life from over ten different angry mobs was enough to make anyone annoyed, she was going to make sure he knew that. "Getting the hang of running for my life? That's instinctive, thank you very much."

He chuckled. "Feel up to another trip?"

"Now?"

The incredulous look she shot him spoke louder than words. He'd seen a similar look on Jackie Tyler's face right before she slapped him once, and that memory was enough to make him tread carefully. "No! No, no, no, no, no, no. Not now, no. I don't know about you but gaols take it out of me – I need a shower and a rest before I'm up for anything else."

"Ok then." Martha pulled herself up. "I call the bathroom!"

"Oi!" he raced after the med student but her head start was too great and he heard the slam of the bathroom door. "Cheek!" he muttered to himself, stalking in the opposite direction.

It wasn't as if that was the only bathroom within the TARDIS, after all the time ship was potentially infinite, but that was The Bathroom. Capital T, capital B. The Bathroom. It was more of a spa than a bathroom and she got there first! The Doctor dug his hands into his pockets and stalked off towards his bedroom. He was just lucky he had an ensuite.

He entered his room and shrugged his jacket off, draping it over his chair by his desk. He already had three other jackets draped over that chair, but he couldn't be bothered to move them, or even hang them up in his wardrobe. If he was honest with himself, he didn't have room in his wardrobe for his clothes anyway. When Rose had moved into his room with him…

He shook that thought away and looked away from all traces of Rose, which was harder said than done. Her clothes were hung with his, her toiletries in their ensuite outnumbered his, her presence was etched into every part of his room, every part of his ship, every part of his soul. He couldn't get away from memories of his Rose.

The Doctor grabbed the book he'd been studying the night before and began reading it in an attempt to drive away the memories. But _The theory of multiple universes and traversing the Void_ was hardly the right book to read if he didn't want to remember Rose. He threw the book down in disgust, having remembered why he'd stopped reading it in the first place.

Rassilon stated clearly that the Void could only be crossed via an artificial but tightly controlled pathway (like the breach, the Doctor recalled, only that wasn't controlled at all – and because of the way he had closed it there was no way he could control it should it ever open again) or if there was a Time Lord in each universe who could form a bridge across the Void by connecting two natural anomalies such as rifts. One of his first plans involved using the Cardiff Rift to get Rose back, but with no other Time Lord on the parallel Rift he wouldn't be able to pick the correct universe to connect to. He could try for the rest of his life and not find her.

In short, there were only two ways he could get Rose and his previous actions had prevented both of them from becoming possibility.

It was the cloister bells that pulled him out of his musings and had him racing back to the console room, shirt half tucked in, tie hanging like a noose round his neck. That alarm hadn't rung out since the Time War and was enough to chill him to the bone as memories of that awful time came crashing back upon him. The screams of the dying. The heat of the fires. The battle-cry of the Daleks.

"What the hell is that noise?!" Martha screamed at him as she hurried into the console room, fully dressed, but wearing her slippers and brandishing her hair dryer like a weapon.

He hadn't even realised he'd made it to the console room, or that he had called up a display screen. He quickly forced his pas back into his memories and read the display out to her. "The TARDIS has detected a localised temporal disturbance… blimey that sounds like I'm on Star Wars, a disturbance in the force an' all that…" he trailed off noticing the look Martha was sending him. "Right. Right. It's a localised temporal disturbance – too localised to be completely natural, probably some sort of technology tapping into a natural source of temporal power, like the old Eye of Harmony or a rift or…" he trailed off again staring at the screen in horror.

"Doctor? Doctor?" Martha waved at him, trying to catch his attention. "Why are we moving when you're not doing anything?"

He didn't hear her. "But that's impossible!" he typed out a few commands and a new display came up. "No! No way! There's nothing that could open it!"

"Open what? And have you noticed the rotor moving?" she screeched.

"It a rift in Cardiff…" he started to reply having heard her question this time but trailed of again, openly gaping at the screen. "What? Now that really is impossible!"

"What?!" Martha shouted.

"Huon particles?! Huon particles?!"

"Huon particles?" she echoed.

"Excess Huon particles… and they're so concentrated… almost like there's another TARDIS there…"

That caught Martha's attention. "You're saying that the Huon things are in the TARDIS and that there's one on that rift?"

"No. There are no other TARDISes. The TARDIS and I… we're the last… so how can they be on the Rift…" his eyes widened again and for a moment he thought he'd be better off pinning his eyebrows to his hairline permanently. They seemed to like it up there. "No, they're not just on the Rift, they're closing it!" the moving rotor seemed to suddenly catch his attention. "And the TARDIS is taking us there!"

"But… if this is the only TARDIS, how can there be another one closing this Rift thingy?"

He looked at her and she recognised that determined look, dropping her hairdryer in resignation – she was going to have to run about in fluffy purple slippers with wet hair on an alien planet. "Oh, Martha, Martha, Martha, that is a very good question. Excellent even! But it's not the one we should be asking. We should be asking… who else has Huon particles in that concentration? And an even better question would be how could they hide it from me?"

A chill ran through her. "Who hid it from you?"

"Torchwood!"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

That's it for now I'm afraid – I'm being kicked off the computer as we speak – but either tomorrow or the next day the rest of this chapter will be up. Reviewers get chocolate!


	6. Captain Jack

**Impossible**

Hey all! Thanks you so much for the great reviews. As promised, here is the rest of this chapter. This one does actually have Jack in.

Beach Dog – glad you like it, hope this chapter is just as good.

Moreta Lynx – you can have all the chocolate you want, you got it right:) Although, technically, alternate Torchwood aren't behind this – they do have some bearing on the end of the fic though. Try and put together the rest of the clues. :)

stardog252 – glad you like it, as for pairings, its eventually going to be 10Rose (not sure if I mentioned that earlier on or not) and I still haven't decided if I'll pair Martha up with anyone yet. Any other pairings will happen when they happen.

**Chapter 3**** – Captain Jack**

The chill came back tenfold. "Torchwood?" She'd bullied the Doctor into telling her about Canary Wharf when they'd been stranded in 1969, needing to find out what happened to her cousin. He'd told her the very basic of details, even admitting he'd seen her cousin's dead body, but when she'd pressed him further he'd snapped at her that he'd lost Rose during that battle and stormed out with his Timey-Wimey detector. She knew then that no matter how much she begged him he wouldn't tell her any more than she already knew. She'd decided she didn't really want to know any more – Adeola had trusted Torchwood and they'd betrayed her trust and caused her death. That gave her just as much reason to hate Torchwood as the Doctor did, even though she didn't hate them as passionately as he did.

"Torchwood!" he confirmed with a bleak non, before his manic energy suddenly returned and he was darting around the console setting coordinates and pulling levers. "The TARDIS is taking us in, not really her fault, I programmed her to lock onto mauve alerts hundreds of years ago, but she's taking us in right after the Rift is closed!"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"It is considering Torchwood had Huon particles in their possession last Christmas, they know I'll react to Huon particles and I'm their Number One Target!"

"So what are you doing?" the med student demanded, clinging onto the railing automatically.

"We're going in… a couple of days after the Rift sealed… right smack in the middle of the Rift."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Nah! Not for me! We're going to land for, oh, say, three seconds? Yeah. Three seconds is good. We'll land for three seconds, open up the computers and the engines, close them up and leave again. All information from any nearby computer will be taken immediately, and the residual energy given off by the sealed Rift will help refuel the TARDIS."

The ship jolted suddenly having landed in Cardiff and the console immediately went haywire. "The TARDIS needs fuel?" she wondered, more to herself than anything.

"Of course!" he looked indignant even as he pushed the lever to take them back into the vortex. "Every living thing needs fuel. The only difference is how much of what and when."

"Alive?" the twenty-something med student reeled at the implications of that statement but before she could question it further a howl startled them both.

"DOCTORRRRRR!"

The Scream was at the same time terrifying in it's ferocity and soul-breaking in the naked emotion coursing through it. It pulled at Martha's heart while it stirred the Doctor's memory. How often had he and Rose remembered that man fondly? How often had he caught himself thinking back to the time when the three of them were a team? How often had he stopped himself from going to pick the man up, reminding himself that Jack still had things to do, was still written into history?

Is seemed that history had had enough of one Captain Jack Harkness as the one time con man cried out again. "Doctor!"

"Jack?" the word fell from his lips as no more than a whisper, one that was barely audible. He hurried to the console again, this time to hurry them out of the vortex and land on the closest planet in time and space. No human could survive in the vortex, in fact, he was only aware of the Reapers who could.

They shuddered to a halt for the second time that day and no sooner had the rotor stopped moving did the TARDIS doors swing open revealing the trench-coated figure standing there.

Jack stalked out of his office away from Gwen with the excuse of looking for coffee, when really he was getting away from her questions and his own conscience, guilt and self-pity. Only the Doctor could have tempted him to have opened the Rift, if only to see him again, but it was the same thought that prevented him from opening the Rift.

He couldn't bear to see the Doctor's look of disappointment, which Jack knew the Time Lord would have, once he realised just who had opened the Rift. He'd sooner face a thousand more creatures like Abadon than see that disappointment – no matter what face the Doctor wore (oh yes, Torchwood obviously knew all about the Doctor's regeneration). Blue eyes or brown, the disappointment would be the same.

He hadn't exactly lied to Toshiko when he told her that Jack Harkness wasn't his birth name, because it wasn't.

The truth was he didn't have a birth name. He had a number. 2.1.4-23.15.12.6. Captain Jack Harkness, one time con man, now immortal head of Torchwood Three, was really just a string of numbers. He was just one in a long line of children, taken at birth and raised in the Cadet Academy from the start to be the best Time Agent he could be. From the time he learned to walk he was trained in combat, from the time he learned to speak he was trained in languages. The Time Agency manipulated and in turn he learned how to manipulate.

But the fact remained, no matter how many fighting styles he knew, no matter how many languages he spoke, no matter how charming, intelligent, funny, daring or brave he was… he was still just a number to the Time Agency. Cadet, then later Agent, 2.1.4-23.15.12.6. The Agency didn't care how he struggled to please, they didn't praise his attempts, they didn't hold him when he was sad or hurt, they didn't laugh with him or play with him. He was just another number… until he met the Doctor and Rose.

He knew straight from the start they weren't who they claimed to be – honestly, Mr Spock? He'd pretended not to understand it so as to go along with them, but honestly! Then they'd done something completely unexpected. They'd cared about him. They'd saved him from the bomb, they gave him a place aboard the TARDIS, a home, a family. They'd cared about him and he loved them.

That had been the first time he'd loved someone (emotionally, not physically) and that had been why he hadn't tried to sleep with either of them. Sure he'd flirted, that was still too much a part of him not to, but he hadn't taken it further, even though he knew he could have. Rose cared about him. She was the mother, cousin, aunt, sister and friend he'd never had growing up. With that one shout to get into the TARDIS she'd become his family. The Doctor cared about him too. He had been the father, cousin, uncle, brother and friend that Jack had never had…

… which was why he wouldn't have opened the Rift. Yes, the Doctor would know it was him and come looking, but he couldn't bear to have his family so disappointed in him so he would keep the Rift closed. He would prove his family's trust in him was well founded. It was just a stroke of dumb luck that his team had gone against him and opened the Rift, and just a stroke of dumb luck he was immortal and could stop Abadon.

That was the thought that kept him up at night though. He had died by the Daleks hand far into the future, which was why he knew he had been left by the Doctor and Rose, but the Time Lord was the only one he could think of who even came close to having the intellect and the resources to make him immortal – so why was he left behind?

A rushing sound pulled him out of his thoughts and he could see the Doctor's severed hand glowing, pulsing with the rhythm of time, the sound of the universe, the sound of a materialising TARDIS. The second the blue police box became solid he was running towards it, key already in hand, running home… but it began to fade again.

So he did the only thing he could. He latched onto his home for all that he was worth and cried out to his family, begging them to hear him.

"DOCTORRRRRR!"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I know, I know, another short chapter. But I promise, I swear on everything I hold dear, the rest of this chapter will be up tomorrow! It's mostly written, but this was all I could post today. Fear not, Jack still has to meet Martha and come to terms with the new Doctor – I wonder how that will go down?

A million pounds for each reviewer!! (Disclaimer: I don't have a million pounds, I don't even have ten. I'm a student – that should tell you all you need to know about my financial state… though I did just find a 50p down the couch!)


	7. Explanations

**Impossible**

As promised, here is the rest of this chapter. See my authors note at the end for details of other updates – and for a little competition ;)

Beach Dog – thanks again for a great review (and, personally, you wouldn't believe the number of thing I've found in my couch)

Moreta Lynx - hands over a tissue thanks so much for the great review hun beams it really made my day :) for some reason by boyfriend acts the same way when I start watching Doctor Who (though I think he might be jealous of David, lol) and I'm sorry about not being really clear in my last review – they all do have something to do with it, just not in the timeline you were thinking of… and with that cryptic message, on with the fic

Speech is in normal font, thoughts in _italics_, telepathic communication in **bold**.

**Chapter 4 - Explanations**

"Doctor?" Jack breathed, standing just outside the TARDIS.

The new Doctor gave a wide grin. "Hello Jack."

That told Jack all he needed to know. He had been left. The Doctor knew he was alive and had chosen to go off with Rose. He had been abandoned by his family, the only people who had ever cared about him as a person not a number and they'd left him for dead. They hadn't even come looking for him.

He wasn't even aware that he'd said all that out loud until he was pulled inside by the slightly shorter Doctor – _damn, he's fast, and how'd he get so strong?_ – and pushed towards the console, the TARDIS doors slamming behind them both. "You know that's not true Jack Harkness!"

"You left me for dead!" he shouted back. "You didn't even think to go and find my body! You just left… and I had to watch as my family left me behind!"

"You were a Time Agent Jack! You of all people should know how dangerous it is to take someone out of history once they've been written into it… I'd started to regenerate, so I carried Rose back into the TARDIS…"

"Rose wasn't even there!" Jack screamed, not caring how he sounded. "You sent her away from there, so she'd be safe, so she'd live… but I know now you sent her away so you could join her afterwards. How long was it until the two of you got together? With no Jack in your way I bet it was easy for the two of you to…"

"She's gone."

Those two words were so soft there could barely be heard above Jack's tirade, but somehow the immortal man heard them and stopped in his tracks. "What?"

"She's gone, Jack. Rose is gone."

His knees gave out on him as he hit the grated floor of the TARDIS. Those six words hitting him harder than any blow and hurting him far more than Abadon had. He could feel salty tears coursing down his cheeks freely but made no move to brush them away. Sobs choked his throat but he made no sound. Rose was gone?

The crying face of the Time Lord appeared in front of him, the sorrow is his brown eyes far more profound and deep than his own and far more revealing than any words.

"I'm sorry Jack. We should have gone back for you when your time in history was up, we could have told you we'd be seeing you soon… but the fact is we didn't, and after Rose…" he couldn't finish the sentence.

Martha stared at the two crying men in silence. Jack hadn't noticed her and the Doctor hadn't introduced her. She'd moved away when the shouting had started, giving them some space, but now as she watched them cling to each other and mourn the woman they had both loved, she knew she had to give them some space. Her curiosity, however, wouldn't have been satisfied by that, so she went out of the console room, just far enough so she couldn't be seen but so she could still hear them. She would finally find out about Rose and Canary Wharf. Martha settled down on the floor, making herself comfortable, not caring she still had wet hair, and listened.

"… I did send Rose away but she found a way to bring the TARDIS back. She was the one who killed the Daleks, Jack, not me. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't kill them and I knew it would mean my death, I knew I wouldn't regenerate, but I didn't care. Rose was safely away from there, you'd died as far as I knew, I had no reason to live in that time… and with all the horrors of the Time War fresh in my mind, I'll admit now that I was almost willing to die."

"Rose killed the Daleks? How?"

"I don't know," he lied. He'd promised Rose, long ago, he'd never speak of Bad Wolf again. He wasn't going to break that promise. "Something happened though. Something went wrong. Rose was knocked out and I was hit fatally. I was already starting to regenerate when I carried her back into the TARDIS. I had just enough time to go back for you, but the TARDIS wouldn't let me. She showed me you were already in history. So I did the only thing I could do. I took us into the vortex so I could regenerate… my memory of that time is very hazy though, the regeneration scrambled my brains, because the next thing I remember clearly is coming to with Jackie hovering over me," he pulled a face. "I thought I had died then."

Jack chuckled. He couldn't help it. "Jackie took care of you? Ouch!"

"Oh yeah, rub it in!"

They both chuckled before sobering. There was one more part of this story that had to be told. "How did she die?" Jack asked, shocking Martha. She was sure the Doctor had said that Rose was alive, why did Jack think she was dead?

His next words shocked both companions. "That's just it Jack… she isn't dead. She's trapped in a parallel universe and I can't get to her."

Understanding dawned upon Jack. "The Cybermen and Daleks at Canary Wharf. They came from a parallel universe."

"Rose and I were closing the breach, trapping the Daleks and Cybermen in the Void forever, but she slipped. She was going to get pulled in but then Pete showed up. We'd fallen into that parallel universe before and her dad, Pete, was still alive there. He used this device he'd found that hops between universes to hop back into ours, get Rose, and hop back into his where she was safe."

"Can't you get that device? Can't we go and get her?"

"You don't get it Jack. The breach was destroying both universes so I closed it. Permanently. I just had enough time to send a message to her but I couldn't tell her…"

"What?"

"I couldn't tell her that I love her."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

There we go, Jack's back. Yay! I can't wait to see how he is in this Saturday's episode, though hopefully, my next chapter will be up by then – wow, 3 updates in 3 days. I'm on a roll here. Unfortunately though, exams are once again upon me (oh joy) so, after the next chapter, updates will once again become less frequent until they're over. Don't worry though, the ending will be up soon.

By the way, a prize for any reader who puts my clues together and figures out the ending. More clues in the next chapter.


	8. The Beginning of the End

**Impossible**

Beach Dog - /blushes/ thanks for the high praise – I hate exams too but they're a necessary evil. In just three short weeks they will all be over though and my life will return to normal :( hopefully I'll be able to post the next chapter soon as it is already written, but I'm making no promises.

McRaider – sorry my reply to you wasn't in the previous chapter, I posted before I read my reviews, but thanks for taking the time to review and for being honest :) I'm glad you liked my portrayal of Jack and the Doctor – I can't wait to see how they interact tonight. And you certainly didn't offend me, I'm just glad you're honest in your review (and you're right, the summary is a little off, lol, but it was the only thing I could think of, I might change it is I think of something better, lol) – in fact, this chapter is for you hun, hope you enjoy :)

And now, the chapter - things are finally getting to a head, Jack is once again part of the TARDIS crew, his secret is out, but before anything can be done, the Doctor gets a surprise phone call…

As always, speech is in normal font, thoughts are in _italics_, telepathic communication is in **bold**.

**Chapter 5 – The Beginning of the End**

The Doctor stormed into the TARDIS, followed by an equally irate Jack Harkness and a very annoyed medical student. Said medical student slammed the doors of the TARDIS so hard that the lights dimmed and the console sparked in warning. It seemed the foul mood of the three time travellers was catching.

"Where do you think you're going?" she snapped at the Doctor, who was about to go storming off into the depths of his ship. She didn't give him time to answer. "You are going to come back here and sit down and talk, mister! You and Jack have been snapping and bickering since that ambush earlier and I want to know why!"

"Isn't it obvious?" both men snapped.

"No!"

They didn't expect such a ferocious reply and quickly sat down on the Captain's chair, looking for all the world like school children brought before the headmaster. Inwardly, Martha was gloating at her victory but she maintained her annoyed façade. One look at Jack was enough to have him talking.

"I don't know why he's so annoyed. He should have been expecting it!"

"Expecting it? Expecting it! You actually think I expected to have you run off as bait only to see you gunned down in front of me before miraculously getting up and brushing the mud off your coat!"

"It was pretty scary." Martha added in a small voice, unwilling to take sides but still shocked by seeing Jack's murder and his apparent nonchalance towards the large blood stained holes in his clothes.

"You could have mentioned this in the Blitz!" The Doctor snapped again. "Some quick throwaway remark, oh by the way guys, I'm immortal!"

Jack gaped. "But, you… I… it wasn't…" he trailed off, shrugging his coat off and running a frustrated hand through his hair. "You didn't know I was immortal?"

"No."

"But I thought you made me immortal."

The silence was deafening. Even the usual background sounds of the TARDIS seemed to fade away as the reality of the situation sank in. Martha was the first to speak.

"Well, now you two have realised there was no need to bicker, maybe someone can explain to me just how Jack can be immortal," she turned a questioning gaze onto the American. "You're not like him are you? Part Time Lord?"

"No!" both men answered. Jack continued. "No, I'm 100 human… but I'm immortal for some reason. I know I wasn't immortal before I met the Doctor and Rose… but after I was killed by a Dalek I remember this music and then I woke up. I was alive and just bursting with life, with this energy. Then I heard the TARDIS dematerialising and I guess I just assumed that you'd made me immortal."

The Doctor shook his head. "I wouldn't even know how to begin going about making a human immortal. I know I could extend your life a couple of decades, maybe even a hundred or so years, but not immortality."

The three time travellers stared at each other. Martha was shocked than not only could the human life be extended, according to the Doctor, but that death it seemed could be postponed indefinitely. The proof was staring her in the face. How could such a thing be possible?

It seemed Jack had also been thinking along the same lines as he frowned suddenly and leant back in the chair, crossing his arms. "How did this happen to me?" he asked to no one in particular. "I thought you were the only one who could have done this, that's why I was waiting for you, that's why I took the job at Torchwood – I figured they'd find you if no one else did and… What?"

Two set of eyes were glaring at him. "You work for Torchwood?"

"Actually, they work for me – Queen Victoria gave me the position as head of Torchwood Three, the Cardiff base, when I told her my story. I'm in charge there and we are about as different from Torchwood One as you can get. I still get updates though, so I know where and when you've been spotted… I just couldn't get to Canary Wharf in time to get to you."

Martha seemed satisfied by his answer but something about it grabbed at the Doctor. "Forgetting Torchwood for now – you thought I was the only one able to do this? Why?"

"Because I've scanned myself countless times – there's no foreign technology, no alien chemicals, no change to my DNA at all. There's nothing to explain it. It isn't even dying, really, its more like the second I die, my body goes back in time. I scanned myself while I was dying once and the cells didn't show any signs of repair, like if I'd healed, they were new and fresh, like the cells in a baby. No signs of wear or tear."

The Doctor frowned and reached for his sonic screwdriver. "You were right about the technology… and the chemicals… and your DNA is standard for a 51st century human…" the light suddenly began to flicker and he glared at his screwdriver, flicking it. It came back on again and he grinned. "Right. Now. Well that's odd."

"What?"

"I can detect anything wrong with you either," he ginned and jumped up. "Right. Medical Wing."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Can I go now?"

"No."

"Can I go now?"

"No."

"Can I go now?"

"No!"

"Can I go…"

"Jack!" The Doctor snapped.

"But you said five more minutes over an hour ago!" he whined.

"And then you moved and we had to start the scan again!"

"Now children!" Martha snapped. "The scanner is counting down the last minute. If you stay still you'll be out of here soon."

As if her words had caused it, the scanner suddenly beeped and opened and an ecstatic Jack jumped out and immediately began stretching out his muscles. The Doctor was still glue to the same small screen he'd been watching for the past two hours, looking for anything that could explain Jack's condition.

"Well, nothing bad showed up in the initial scans," he started and pressed a few buttons. "I'm getting all the results printed off, we should be able to…"

For the second time in as many days he was cut off by a ringing sound only this wasn't as loud or as urgent as the ringing or the cloister bells. It took him a while to place the noise: it was his phone.

"You've got a phone on this thing?" Martha was incredulous.

He sighed. "Why is it they always ask that? Yes, I've got a phone on the TARDIS, is that so strange?"

"Well, yeah. It just doesn't seem… advanced… enough for you…" she trailed off. "Aren't you going to answer it?"

It was the Doctor's face that was incredulous then. "It shouldn't be ringing," he frowned. "No one has this number, except…"

"Rose!" Jack finished and the two raced from the medical wing immediately, followed by a shocked Martha after she grabbed the printouts from the scanner.

The Doctor launched himself at the console as soon as he could and snatched the phone up. "Rose?"

"It's Sarah Jane, Doctor," her surprised and confused voice came over the line, correcting his assumption. "I hope you don't mind me calling."

His face fell. "Hello Sarah," he sighed, impossible to hide the disappointment in his voice. Jack buried his face in his hands and sat down. "No, no, I don't mind you calling, but… how did you get my number?"

"Rose gave it to me the last time I saw her," a simple enough answer, one he should have expected. "She told me to call this number if…"

Concern replaced disappointment. "What? Sarah? What is it?"

She sighed. "I can't explain it to you over the phone, Doctor; it's just too long and complex. Can you meet me at my house in five minutes? My time that is? I can explain it to you over a cup of tea – so you still take seven sugars?"

"Ah, no, not in this body," he laughed. "I don't take sugar this time around."

"Oh, alright then." Disappointment that he was different from her Doctor in _another_ way laced her voice. "Is there someone else? I mean, have you got another companion?"

"Yes, two actually. Martha Jones, she's a med student, and an old friend, Jack Harkness."

"I'll put a pot of tea on for us all then," he could hear the smile in her voice. "I'll see you in five minutes then Doctor." Sarah hung up and the dial tone sounded.

He was setting the co-ordinates at once. "That was an old companion of mine – Sarah Jane Smith. Rose gave her the number. She needs to see me about something."

"Can't it wait?" Martha asked, trying, and failing, not to sound jealous. "I mean, you've only just got Jack's test results," she waved the papers at him but he just put them on the chair.

"I don't think so, Martha. Sarah wouldn't just call if she wanted to talk or for anything less that the most important of reasons. Besides, we're only going for a cup of tea," he pulled the lever. "What could happen?"

Jack and Martha just stared at him.

"Right. Forget I said that."

Jack just rolled his eyes and went to the door, shrugging his trench coat on as he did. "Miss Sarah Jane Smith I presume," he grinned at the brunette reporter and stepped outside, taking her hand and kissing it. "A pleasure. I'm Captain Jack Harkness."

Her smile was genuine. "Pleasure to meet you Captain."

"Break it up, Harkness!" the Doctor chuckled, stepping out of the TARDIS with Martha. "Stop the flirting."

"I was just saying 'hello', Doc," he held his hands up defensively.

"For you that is flirting!"

"Ignore them," Martha pushed past the bickering men. "They've been like this for days. Hi, I'm Martha Jones."

"Sarah Jane Smith," she smiled again. "You're the medical student, right?" Martha nodded. "And are you army, Captain Harkness?"

"I'm a Time Agent, ma'am," he grinned. "Met the Doctor in the Blitz, London, 1941, and became his companion. I've recently returned from a stint at Torchwood Three."

Her eyes widened. "You're with Torchwood?"

"You know about Torchwood?" Martha gaped. "But how?"

"Martha has a point, Sarah," the Doctor looked at her, his eyes penetrating. "How do you know about Torchwood, when they pride themselves on secrecy?"

She had the decency to look ashamed. "Calling you wasn't _my_ idea, Doctor. I was told to call you and get you to come here."

His mind immediately began racing with all sorts of scenarios and escape plans and he wondered who could possible have coerced Sarah Jane into doing this and how they did it. "By whom? And how do they know Torchwood?"

"By me," a figure called out from the kitchen door. "And I used to be the Head of Torchwood."

The Doctor gaped at the figure in the doorway, someone who he thought he would never ever see again.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Hehe, aren't I evil? You'll just have to review to find out who it is. I'll give you a clue though – it isn't an obvious answer.


	9. Torchwood Zero

**Impossible**

Important note: this chapter follows on from the last one, but it also includes the explanations and events of "Utopia" because, funnily enough, it works with the end of this fic, lol. Anyway, this is set before "The Sound of Drums" I just couldn't post it then. This chapter also assumes that Saxon has been PM for a few months. There will be another chapter up soon.

Lily of the Shadow – wow, my fic got you hooked? Yay me! Funy you should say Queen Victoria, I was going to have her in this. That was my first attempt though which my computer wiped out /damn virus/ so I've changed it in this one. You'll just have to read on to find out who it is.

White Purity – read on and you'll find out! Thanks for the review.

Elvish-Princess99 – no its not Rose, but close. And I'm sorry I implied this was 10/Martha because it isn't. It's a post-Doomsday reunion fic, with eventual 10/Rose. Sorry, but thanks for the review.

As always, speech is in normal font, thought are in _italics_, telepathic communication is in **bold**.

**Chapter 6 ****– Torchwood Zero**

"Pete?" the Doctor gaped at the man stood in the doorway. "But you… that's… how…" he stood there doing a perfect imitation of a goldfish as Jack and Martha looked on in worry and confusion.

"Pete?" Jack asked, ignoring everyone but the Doctor, a strange fear gnawing at him. "As in Rose's dad Pete? That Pete Tyler? Parallel universe Pete Tyler?"

"That's me," Pete answered for the gaping Doctor. "Who are you two?"

Jack immediately grinned and stepped forward, holding his hand out. "Captain Jack Harkness, pleasure to meet you sir, and this delightful beauty is Martha Jones."

"Oh, stop flirting!" the Doctor responded automatically, breaking him out of his trance. "Pete – where is Rose?"

"She's gone…"

The Doctor felt his hearts constrict with those two words and was sure he would have died of grief if it weren't for the next seven words.

"… Someone took her. She needs your help," Pete finished. "If anyone can find her its you."

"Tell me everything… and start with how you managed to get to this universe. The breach was…"

"…sealed with no hope of ever breaking down the wall without destroying a universe," Pate smirked sadly. "Rose told us the exact same thing. But the thing is, we never thought about using an existing path."

"There are none though. I closed them with the breach and they can't be opened!"

"Exactly. But there _were_ pathways before you closed the breach," the ex-head of Torchwood paused to let it sink in with the Doctor, then carried on. "When we got back from the beach in Norway, Rose found the Torchwood had found the remains of a time ship and after a couple of months, with a lot of engineering help, we had it operational – but only for one jump. So we all climbed in…"

"All?"

"Rose, Mickey, Jackie, myself and Jake – he wanted to see what this universe was like," he shrugged offhandedly. "Anyway, we jumped to the night you posed as service in my house and while the past you and Rose were busy we snuck onto the TARDIS with Rose's key…"

"And snuck out again in _this_ universe while Rose and I were busy and have been living here with Sarah Jane," the Doctor grinned. "That's brilliant that is! Absolutely brilliant!"

"Great, great, they're all brilliant, but what about Rose?" Jack was getting impatient.

Pete sighed and took a mug of tea from the tray Sarah had left their tea things on. "That's not quite as simple."

They took their cue from him and hurried getting their drinks and sitting at Sarah Jane's dining table. Sarah made sure they had everything, told the Doctor briefly where K-9 was and then excused herself to go and find Jackie so they could collect Luke and Maria from school – Monday's, Tuesday's and Wednesday's she picked them up, Thursday's and Friday's Maria's dad did.

"Basically, it's because of this new Pres… Prime Minister," Pete corrected himself. "I'm still not used to that. Anyway, his policies are fantastic, no doubt about it, but he's also an open supporter of alien theorists. He believe we are not alone in the universe, which we know is true, and all this recent alien activity has only served to increase his popularity."

Martha nodded. "I heard him and his supporters on the radio just after the hospital was brought back from the moon. They were persuasive."

"That got him voted in as PM and got loads of legislation passed in support of other alien theorists – Sarah even got a grant off him because she isn't afraid to put her name to alien and ET stories."

"Sounds like a great man," the Doctor mused, though his tone gave no indication if he meant that statement seriously or sarcastically.

"The only problem is the Canary Wharf survivors."

Jack perked up at this. "Torchwood employees? Only 27 made it out of there alive – only 22 of them are still active people, the others are in homes and hospitals."

"One of them went to Torchwood Two, the other to Torchwood Three," Pete agreed and handed over a file. "Sarah has a computer that was able to hack the system with no one the wiser."

Jack didn't even look at it. "Ianto Jones went to Torchwood three, he's one of my men there," Pete gaped at him, not realizing that this Jack Harkness was the J. Harkness in Torchwood. "And I know McGregor went back to Glasgow to help Torchwood Two… but what about the other twenty."

"They've formed something called Torchwood Zero. They're above the regular Torchwood and have split from them. They seem freelance at the moment, taking out any alien threat that they see, or what they deem to be a threat, but they're too organized. Mr Smith, Sarah's computer, managed to find that there's a 21st person involved too, but that person is an absolute secret. There's nothing on him, except a name: Thascales."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow but said nothing in response to the name. He did, however, cast a long look at his TARDIS, sat contentedly in the kitchen not three metres away from him. He'd programmed an automatic jump, much like he had for Rose before his regeneration, while the TARDIS had been dematerialising on Malcassairo. As soon as the door to the TARDIS closed, after the intruder had left, it would immediately return for them, after only a few seconds. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly, and they were able to escape the rabid hoard of Futurekind lusting after their blood. Since then he had been loath to leave the TARDIS unattended for any amount of time.

"He seems to be the one ordering the hits – sudden raids at any time of the day, literally pulling people off the streets and driving them away to an unknown location. It's like a police state. No one, not even Mister Saxon, can seem to control them. There have been pleas made from the families of the kidnapped and from everyone in the government to bring these people back but nothing." Pete pulled out a map which showed several pen scribbles. "The red crosses indicate location where people were taken – the date is next to them."

"This is over a hundred people Pete, how can this be going on?" Martha was aghast. "People would notice, they'd do something, they'd stop it!"

"You think we haven't tried? No one knows who'll be next, no one knows where they'll hit next, no one knows anything is happening until its all over, and then its too late to help them. Its like Torchwood Zero disappear into thin air."

She wasn't giving up. "But you've got all this information, why haven't you gone to the police? The Prime Minister? Why haven't you told anyone?"

"Because that would make us the next target, Martha. If I went public with this, I'd be putting my wife, our son, Mickey, Jake, Sarah Jane, her son Luke, and everyone in this neighbourhood at risk of kidnap. And there would be no way we could get Rose back then."

"Sarah Jane has a son?" the Doctor asked, interrupting the explanation. "Oh, and congratulations to you and Jackie. What his name?"

"Sarah adopted Luke," the cut a long story short. "And thanks. We called him Jack Peter Ross Tyler, after Jackie, myself and Rose."

"Cute," he grinned. Jack cleared his throat meaningfully. "Oh right. Continue please."

"We couldn't risk coming forward with this, so we started looking for more information. The black crosses are where the bodies of the kidnapped were found, but none of the families recognised them. We only knew because we hacked police records. Rose thought it was odd that the number of bodies was roughly half the number of kidnappings, so she began investigating even more. But they knew somehow and pulled her, Mickey and Jake off the street."

"And you got my number off her, got Sarah to call me and get me here to find her?" the Doctor grinned suddenly. "Shouldn't be a problem, simple DNA scan in the TARDIS and I'll…"

"We tried that, but this place is shielded from scans."

"How do you know that?" Jack asked.

"Follow me." Pete stood up.

"Jack, Martha, stay with the TARDIS," the Doctor instructed and shot them a look that dared them to argue with him. They both stayed put.

"Torchwood Zero didn't expect this kidnapping to be different to the others," Pete explained as he led the Doctor upstairs. "So they were surprised and what these three could do. When they stopped the van and tried to take them out, they found back and escaped. We got a phone call from the three of them, Mickey said something about Cardiff?"

"Oh yeah," he recalled the time they chased Margaret the Slitheen around her mayoral office.

"Anyway, they split up, ran in three different directions. The first street sign, landmark, whatever it was they came across, they reported back and we've got a rough location of Torchwood Zero marked out on the map…"

"But we couldn't do more!" a voice, full of self-pity interrupted. "Good to see you again Doctor," Jake greeted.

"Jake? Blimey! Been in the wars?" he looked the Preacher over, wincing in sympathy. His left leg was bound in a plaster cast from ankle to hip and he was walking with the aid of a crutch. His left arm was held in a sling and there were numerous cuts, bruised and abrasions covering his arms and face. The Doctor could only imagine the damage he couldn't see.

"You could say that," Jake smirked. "Mickey and I got a fair distance away from Torchwood Zero before our injuries got the better of us, but we were never in any danger."

"They wanted Rose Doctor. Jake and Mickey heard them. Their orders came directly from Thascales himself: get the blonde."

"They want Rose?"

Pete winced at the cold tone in the Doctor's voice and the glint in his eyes and for a moment, just a fraction of a second, he felt sorry for Thascales and Torchwood Zero. Only for a moment of course. It _was_ his daughter they'd abducted.

"Mickey thinks it has to do with Void stuff and background radiation or something – Rose has more of it that we do, and in greater concentrations. Maybe they had a detector for it?" Jake hypothesised.

"Maybe," his tone was disbelieving. "And where is Mickety-Mick-Mickey then?

"In here boss!" he bellowed from a nearby room. "I'm the damn babysitter!"

The Doctor chuckled when he walked in, seeing Mickey sat in an oversized chair with a cooing, dribbling three-month-old on his lap who wasn't remotely interested in the toys his babysitter was trying to distract him with.

"Hey boss," he grinned, wincing with the effort it cost his beaten body. "What do you need to get Rose back?" blunt and to the point.

"Why do you think they wanted Rose?"

"Honestly: you. She stuck wit' you through that regeneration, got to know a lot of things, easily identified with you. You're like the top prize for Torchwood, I think they wanted her as bait. Jake an' me, we're just the bonuses – the tin dogs."

The Time Lord ignored the stab at K-9. "Then why all the other kidnappings?"

"Get our attention? I dunno."

"Good guess, Mickey. Very good, in fact. But something's not right here…"

"What then?" Pete demanded.

"I don't know… yet. But I intend to find out and put a stop to it. I fully intend to take Torchwood down, brick by brick if I have to, but now they've just gone and made it personal," he stuck his head out of the door. "Jack! Martha! Get up here! Bring the map!"

Quick footsteps could be heard and moments later the two companions bounded into the room, ready for action.

"Well, if it ain't Jumpin' Jack Flash!" Mickey grinned and held his hand out, which the Captain immediately slapped. "Damn if it ain't good to see you. Where've you been? Rose said you were lost."

"Not exactly," he cast a look at the Time Lord. "A certain Doctor was busy so I had to stay behind."

"Leave it."

Jack's retort was cut off when he noticed Jake and his face lit up in a grin. "Captain Jack Harkness. And who are you?" they shook hands.

"Stop flirting already Harkness and get over here with that map!" the Doctor snapped, looking at the small green circle that indicated possible locations of Torchwood Zero. "What are these four points?"

"The one in the middle is where we think the van stopped, the closest to that is where Rose was re-captured. The next two out are Mickey and Jake. That's where they were found by paramedics after they collapsed. The circle is possible locations."

The Doctor grabbed a pen off the table and expanded the circle by about an inch in all directions. "Right, if we widen the area like so and… why did I pick a pink crayon?" he stared at the implement in his hand he'd just drawn a circle with. "Who cares. If we expand the search area, we can do a DNA scan for Rose and get here back…"

"It doesn't work!" three voices interrupted him.

"Ah, but, correct me if I'm wrong, you lot used a general but powerful DNA scan to find Rose and cam up blank," no disagreement. "That led you to conclude that the place is shielded, which it probably is given that you couldn't locate her signal and the power of the scan you used, which I'm guessing is pretty damn powerful considering Sarah's taste in technology…"

"Doctor!" everyone in the room interrupted his babbling.

"My point is, you didn't have a TARDIS and a highly localised search area," he grinned. "We'll be home in time for supper. Jack, Martha, with me. Pete, contact the troops, get them in here, where its safe and you can keep an eye on them. Jake, your mobile," the Preached handed it over immediately and the Doctor zapped it with his sonic screwdriver before slipping it in his pocket. "This will act as a trace and a radio – you can track us from Sarah's computer and hear everything we do. Monitor communications and relay any information we might need to us. Mickey," he grinned suddenly. "Mind the baby!"

And with that he was off, racing down the stairs to the TARDIS followed by a grinning Jack, a nervous Martha and a hurl of abuse from Mickey – words that he devoutly hoped baby Jack Tyler would never grow up to learn.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Coming up in the next chapter – the three time travelers arrive in the heart of Torchwood Zero and are shocked by what they find there. Here's a sneak preview.

"_Rose!" he gathered his dead lover into his arms, sobbing as he help her limp form. "Rose! No!"_


	10. Failure

**Impossible**

Hehe, I am an evil author aren't I? Thanks for all the lovely reviews. **Ramona-Theta** I'm glad you like it, **emerald-sorceress**, I know it doesn't explain anything, that's why I chose that sentence, lol, **aurora.grissom**, thanks for the compliment but I'm not so cold hearted as to do that to the Docor, read on to see what I mean, **AlixMM**, very good questions but I'm afraid I can't answer them right now, they're in a later chapter, and it was the Doctor holding Rose's dead body in that preview, **Beach Dog**, I know, I know, very evil of me, lol.

Well the wait is over, here's the next chapter, just in time for the episode tonight. This fic should now be considered AU. I did hope to get it all posted before the end of this series, but my damn exams kept me away from the computer.

As always, speech is in normal font, thought are in _italics_, telepathic communication in **bold**.

**Chapter 7 – Failure**

"What are we doing?" Martha demanded as soon as they were in the TARDIS.

"Saving Rose."

"Besides that," she groused, already feeling like the third wheel. She just knew it'd be worse when Rose was back. The Time Lord would be all over her and her family, even Jack would, she'd just be the extra passenger.

"Jack, feed the co-ordinates in then run to Rose's room and get here hairbrush. We need her DNA!" he ordered, Jack immediately complying. He turned to Martha. "Someone took Rose as bait to get to me, and I have a terrifying feeling that it's not that simple," his voice trailed off to just above a whisper and there was a faraway look in his eyes. "Something's about to happen. Something big. It's waiting to start, just waiting for the right moment, hiding just on the edge of my vision so I can't see it, in the dark place."

"Doctor, you're scaring me," she murmured.

He wouldn't have a chance to reply as Jack raced back in with Rose's hair brush, several long strands of blonde hair dangling from it. The Doctor was all action once again, his momentary lapse forgotten. "Put them in the compartment below the main screen and press the button to start the scan!" he ordered, grabbing his smaller screen and checking the details there.

"Which one is which? There are several compartments and buttons!" Jack snapped.

"It's the blue Tupperware box the size of a domino and the number eight ball button!"

Jack did so and immediately the screen started bleeping. "Yes! We've got her!" the Doctor cried, accepting Jack's hug with one arm while starting dematerialisation with the other. "Rose, here we come."

Martha watched with mixed feelings as the two men grabbed their coats from the railing, checking their pockets for gadgets (in the Doctor's case) and weapons (in Jack's case). Their delighted mood immediately changed to a sombre one as they stood by the door in anticipation of their landing.

The door was flung open almost before they'd stopped and both men charged out, Martha hurrying after them, closing and locking the TARDIS, but all three stopped when a blood-curdling scream pierced the air.

"Rose…" the word fell from the Doctor's lips as he recognised the voice. "Rose!" he took of running towards the source of the scream, sonic screwdriver out and tracing her position. "Rose! Hold on!"

Jack and Martha followed immediately, Jack racing to save his little sister, his Rosie, the doctor-in-training in Martha screaming out to help Rose, her past imagined animosities forgotten. So what if she was the Doctor's previous companion and his love interest, she needed help!

The corridor they ran to had just two white-coat clad scientists stood in, comparing notes outside a door emblazoned with danger.

"The subject's dead," one announced with the tone or one reporting the weather. "It was the final electric shock that did it, fried her brain up. Pity. The subject had a lot of potential in her to…"

He didn't finish its sentence. Jack's aim was true, even as he raced down the corridor with the Doctor, and his bullet found the mark right in the middle of the man's forehead. He was dead before he hit the floor. His college gaped at them in horror before running off down an adjacent hallway.

"Oh no you don't!" the immortal man snarled. "Doctor, I've got him! Get Rose!"

But the Time Lord didn't even pay attention. His focus was completely on the doors he knew Rose was behind and he ran through them at full pace, leaping the dead scientist's body like a hurdle, only to collapse not two paces inside the room.

"No!" he cried, dropping to his knees as he stared at the table in the middle of the room. "No! Rose!"

Rose lay on that metal exam table, wearing hospital scrubs, her body clearly beaten, her skin rapidly paling and turning an ashen shade of grey. Electrodes were attached to her all over her body and hooked up to a machine that was obnoxiously declaring the lack of pulse. A strange helmet device was attached to her forehead and the lead from that was attached to a generator. Clearly the electric shocks the scientists had been talking about.

"Rose?" he stared at her in horror. He was too late.

"Doctor… I'm so sorry," Martha reached out to touch his shoulder but stopped halfway.

"No. Not Rose, not my Rose," he said, almost begging. He pushed himself up and on shaky legs made his way to the table with faltering steps.

"Doctor?" Martha pleaded. "Doctor, don't." He didn't listen to her.

"Rose?" a shaky hand reached out to touch her face, not daring to believe she could really be dead. He'd just found her again. They were supposed to have the forever she'd promised him. She couldn't be dead.

His hand touched the smooth skin of her cheek, remembering all the times that cheek had been nestled against his own skin as they'd slept, and a sob caught in his throat. Her skin was cold and growing colder. His fingers slipped to her throat above the ring of bruising and the sob finally burst forth when he couldn't find her pulse.

"Rose!" he gathered his dead lover into his arms, sobbing as he help her limp form. "Rose! No!"

Martha crouched down next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder but he shrugged her off, rocking back and forth as he clung to his lover, his hearts breaking in his chest.

"No!" she turned suddenly at the noise and saw Jack hurry through the doors, his gun dropping by his feet as he stared on in horror. "No!"

The med student scrambled to her feet. "Jack… I'm so sorry."

He shook his head, a determined look replacing his sorrow. "No. No. Martha. Hold him!"

Before she could ask what was going on he'd run over to the weeping Time Lord and forcefully pried him away from the dead blonde. Without even realising why she was doing it, Martha followed Jack and grabbed the Doctor before he could lunge at the Time Agent.

"What are you doing Jack! Martha, let go!" he screamed.

Jack lay Rose out on the ground and tilted her head back slightly before checking for a pulse. "Come on Rosie," he pleaded before covering her mouth with his own and breathing out. A slight gold sheen appeared on their skin, as if the strange light was emanating from their bodies' core. Jack pulled away. "Take the life, Rosie, please," he begged, brokenly. "Please!"

He tried again and again, but nothing happened. "Jack," Martha began.

"It should have worked," he cried, taking Rose's face in his hands and kissing her forehead. "It should have…" he trailed off, looking at the body of the woman who was his family in all but blood.

Martha moved away from the sobbing Time Lord, he was too distraught to move from his spot on the floor by Rose's body, and placed her hands on Jack's shoulder to pull him away.

He shrugged her off, still staring at the body in front of him. He turned to look at the Doctor, his tears having dried up almost immediately. "Since when did Rose have green eyes?"

"What are you talking about Jack?" Martha asked, looking down at the dead woman in front of her. Sure enough her eyes, only partially open, were clearly green. A deep vivid emerald green colour. "What's wrong with her eyes?"

"Rose has brown…" he trailed off suddenly.

"Jack?" she placed a hand on his shoulder again, concerned about him.

"Yes!" he screamed, jumping up and punching the air before grabbing the Doctor off the floor and swinging him around. "She's not dead!"

That broke the Doctor out of his distraught trance. "What?"

"She's not dead, Doctor, Rose isn't dead!" he hugged the Time Lord. "That's not Rose!"

"But…" he stared at the dead body lying in front of them, feeling his hearts break at the sight.

Jack grabbed him by the shoulders. "It isn't Rose Doctor. It's a fake. A copy. It's not her – she's not dead!" Instead of celebrating in obvious delight that his lover wasn't dead, the Doctor became bleak faced. Jack and Martha stared at him in concern. "Doctor? Didn't you hear? Rose is alive!"

"Oh Jack I heard you very clearly," he started, pausing just long enough to close the eyes of the woman on the floor. "Very clearly indeed."

"Then why…"

"It's a trap. They took Rose as bait to get to me, an obvious ploy but one I just couldn't ignore," his tone was self-mocking. "So we try a DNA scan, that doesn't work, but then we get the TARDIS to do DNA scan and are led right here to find who we think is Rose. Instead, we find a very good – and when I say very good, I mean _very_ good – clone of her, but with something just not right," he scanned the body with his sonic screwdriver and nodded. "A very good clone, almost perfect in fact, but for one tiny flaw. A codon in the gene for eye colour was replaced by another, giving her green eyes instead of brown. An easy mistake to make if you're not paying careful attention to what you're doing – which, of course, you don't need to do if you're setting a trap for someone who'll race in without another thought."

"Excellent deduction!" a voice cried. Martha tensed when she recognised the voice while Jack and the Doctor spun to face him.

From the far corner of the room an echoing, mocking round of applause began and a man walked out of the shadows that had concealed him, clapping the Doctor sarcastically.

"Very well done, Doctor, very well done. And when _I_ say very well, I mean the complete opposite – a child could have worked it out before you did," he grinned. "Still, it's nice to see that you're still the same Doctor, no matter how many regenerations you go through."

"The same can be said for you."

Martha was gaping at the man in shock and he smirked when he noticed her stare. "And still that same taste – for lack of a better word – in companions. Always pretty without a thing between their ears."

They ignored the deliberate jibe. "Mr Saxon?" the medical student finally found her voice. "But, how? And why?"

"Ah, Martha, that's not Mr Saxon at all," the Doctor said sadly.

"Indeed not," the PM grinned. "I am the Master," he clicked his fingers and the lights in the room went on immediately, revealing who he had hidden behind him. "And you will obey me… or they die!"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

More to come, and **this fic is now AU** because I couldn't post it all in time. Now here's another preview.

_The Doctor scrambled to his feet. "Master! Just answer me this! Why do you want Rose?"_

"_You mean to tell me you honestly don't know?"_


End file.
